Early US Open Notes

OK, Agassi-Pavel last night. Lordy me, Andre be whackin' the vile yellow sphere! With Pavel's thuggy size and heft, I was vaguely reminded of watching Agassi trade sledgehammer groundies with Boris Becker. I suspect this is Agassi's strategy this year: To try to hit right through everyone he faces, in order to stay aggressive and speed up his matches. Of course, didn't happen last night, as AA had to get through three straight tiebreakers and stage a comeback from 0-4 down to get out of the third set. Not exactly the kind of first round match you want if you've been struggling with a bad back.

Now, how about A-Rod's new AmEx ad, "Roddick v. Pong." Yes, Andy takes the court to confront... a Pong video game paddle. "This guy's a backboard" growls a coach-like figure. And yes, Pong does make A-Rod look pretty bad, until A-Rod underhands a serve that bounces 3-4 times before making the baseline (Pong can only more side-to-side, not up-and-back). Right, so AmEx has Andy looking bad on court against a video game from the 1970s and they have the biggest server in tennis underhanding it to win. Hey, I'm all for self-deprecation, and A-Rod is good at it, but this is not exactly welcome Roddick-linked advertising, circa the 2006 US Open, with A-Rod in the midst of a comeback. The ads are even more glaringly ill-conceived in light of last year's downright hexing "Mojo" spots, which seemed to doom A-Rod to an early exit, even before he made an early exit.

I'm thinking Roddick should discuss things a bit more with AmEx before they go live with this stuff.